Tech short: Computers now tie emotions to facial expressions

Imagine turning on your computer to start your workday only to have the machine ask whether you would like to talk to somebody about how you're feeling. A new company called Affectiva has developed a technology that the company claims can read and interpret your facial expressions. Brendan Marr writes about Affectiva's technology in a July 7, 2015, article on DataInformed.

Affectiva's software has been used to test the response to television ads or TV pilots, and to help children with Asperger Syndrome recognize emotions in facial expressions. Two areas the company is targeting are monitoring students as they progress through an assignment to determine when they've encountered some difficulties; and identifying when people are feeling depressed.

So what happens when our emotions are tied to our identities, or our emotional events are recorded for posterity? Psychologist Paul Ekman, on whose work much of the technology is based, writes in a post from May 2014 that not only will our emotions be recorded and used to manipulate our behavior, unscrupulous parties could apply the technology as a form of lie detector -- or even mind reader.

I can see it now: The Republicans introduce legislation outlawing the wearing of masks in public -- all in the name of national security. Can you say "poker face"?